Canada’s longstanding blood donation policy that prevented sexually active men who have sex with men and some trans people from donating blood and plasma was harmful and discriminatory, Canadian Blood Services acknowledged on Friday, in issuing an apology to the LGBTQ2S+ community.
“The policy was put in place with the intent to protect patient safety after the Canadian blood system crisis of the 1980s. We regret that for many years the former policy also contributed to discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, and HIV stigma within society,” Canadian Blood Services CEO Dr. Graham Sher said.
Speaking to a room of community members and allies in Ottawa, Sher acknowledged that while the regret expressed does not erase the harm done, the apology was a long time coming and necessary for the organization to be able to continue to build trust with LGBTQ2S+ communities.
“Canadian Blood Services apologizes to gay, bi and queer men, trans people, and queer people more broadly, for the impact of the former deferral policy. We acknowledge how this policy reinforced the harmful public perception that someone’s blood is somehow less safe because of their sexual orientation. Canadian Blood Services also apologizes to our employees past and present, who over the years may have had to explain or defend the policy,” Sher said.
LGBTQ2S+ representatives were then given the opportunity to take the stage and share their experiences with how the policy impacted them, expressing gratitude for the historic recognition that for decades the ban perpetuated negative stereotypes.
Mike Maloney, a nearly 30-year employee of Canadian Blood Services, and a co-chair of the organizations’ LGBTQ2S+ advisory committee, said after living and working through the blood ban, the day the rules changed he felt as if he could “breath a sigh of relief.”
“I no longer had to worry about explaining or defending our policies to my friends, my family, and members of my community. Today marks another important milestone in Canadian history, and a day that I thought would never be conceivable,” Maloney said.
“I’m proud to have been involved in the development of this apology… I am thankful to have the apology for myself as well… it’s a place to start the healing process.”
Backstory on the ban
In 2022, Canadian Blood Services eliminated the three-month donor deferral period for gay and bisexual men as well as some others in the LGBTQ2S+ community, following Health Canada approval and years of pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make good on his 2015 election pledge to eradicate what he considered a “wrong” policy that ignored “scientific evidence.”
Moving away from what started as a lifetime blanket ban and then incrementally shortened over the last two decades, the national blood donor organization – which bills itself as “Canada’s lifeline” – now screens all blood and plasma donors based on higher risk sexual behaviours, regardless of gender or sexuality.
This policy change was a hard and long-fought effort, backed by research, and led by LGBTQ2S+ Canadians.
Though, with this screening process still disqualifying certain donors on the basis of sexual activity and sexual orientation – specifically if they have recently engaged in anal sex in the context of new or multiple sexual partners within the last few months, or are taking PrEP – advocates have cautioned that the new approach can still indirectly discriminate in an unscientific manner.
Noting this, Sher thanked those continuing to push for improvements to maximize donor inclusion, and vowed Friday to continue to engage and act on feedback from medical experts and the LGBTQ2S+ community.
“Our decisions around donor screening and our policies have always been and will always be based on science. But, science evolves,” Sher said.
Updates to other donor rules
This week, mirroring the new approach for blood donation screening, Health Canada replaced sperm and ova donor restrictions targeting sexually active gay and bisexual men, as well as their partners, with a new gender-neutral, behaviour-based screening questionnaire.
In marking the sperm donation rule change, Health Canada signalled that further reforms may be coming to this country’s continued restrictions on cell, tissue and organ donation.
The federal health agency said it is working with the Canadian Standards Association “to discuss potential changes” to the screening criteria for gay and bisexual donors. This criteria is currently being reviewed by experts in the field, according to the government.
“I hope governments and blood regulators around the world are taking note and follow this lead. But, just because Canada is out in front with this apology doesn’t mean that we’ve crossed the finish line,” said Michael Kwag, executive director of the Community-Based Research Centre, Canada’s largest queer health organization.
“Because it is still more difficult than it should be for queer and trans people to donate blood as well as organ tissue and other biological materials. And that’s very frustrating.”
Questions over the blood, sperm, and tissue policies, and whether the federal government has discriminated against LGBTQ2s+ donors by upholding them, continue to play out in the courts and at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.